#AusPol winners and losers: Who ate the chocolate out of the bin this week?

A hollow goodbye with a slow clap, The Terminator revisited, and a man with no filter painted his English brown… But who were the winners and losers?

Politics, as we know, is a game of inches, where the size of one’s…policy…matters. An arena where the laurels of victory are doled to those who can speak longest, those who can completely avoid answering questions in their allotted time. In our PM’s case, 12 months (and counting). Nevertheless, the vague, albeit magnificent nutcasery flipped down the corridors of power makes it hard to chart a winner. But, we here at TBS Towers don’t play that. Up with this, we shall not put. We voted, so, thusly, we want a result, not just a lesser of the two whomever showed up to work until 2019.

Each week we’ll traipse through the mucky-muck to elevate the arm of those who fought to the bottom of the oozing pit of political discourse in this fine land.

Winners:

Malcolm Turnbull: for organically birthing a new buzzphrase.

Everyone loves campaign slogans, especially our erudite PM, who rode in on the blind pegasus of shining optimism promising to slay the three headed cyclops of the three word slogan with the halberd of the four word slogan. However, an innovative and agile government needs to push the envelope in the realm of the platitude. This week, we have perhaps Mal’s coup de grace. He has a new slogan, but like all great artists, he presents it through “show, don’t tell”; it means something, because we figure it out.

Pop quiz, hot shots. This week, Mal appointed a new Health Minister with the identical issues as the one he got rid of. Extracurricular expenses.

So, with the same ring that binds them, what is Mal’s new slogan?

Whoever said “Continuity”, see me after class. We’re going out. x

Lyle Shelton, for cutting himself free of the rope of logic that binds us.

Like it or not, most of us are giants, nailed to the group by the pygmies of obligation. Seldom do we break free of the shackles, we just endure until we kick the proverbial bucket. We know this, and that’s why we appreciate the films of Pixar (and if you are a sexless, balding academic, Federico Fellini). Pure, unadulterated fantastical tosh.

Lyle Shelton has reached this metaphysical level of being outside the moving picture house. Fresh off insinuating that the van aflame outside his office was akin to the depths of Ramallah, or that the safe schools program could breed the circumstances of a Holocaust sequel, this week he planted his existential crumpet onto same sex marriage, claiming that allowing that, by law, would make gender obsolete.

Also on The Big Smoke

Losers:

Mike Baird: for leaving a legacy so thick, you can carve it (to pieces).

Poor Mike Baird. For the man who, according to the general consensus, did the right thing – leaving (check), to be will his not well family (also check) – even in political death, the man cannot catch a break. And I fear it’s only set to get worse for Casino Michael as the clock ticks beyond 11pm.

You see, history is a cruel temptress. Bloodlessly cruel. Like Cruella de Vil, but sans her love for animals. This cruel so-and-so dances through the pages of history, stamping the actual truth into the floor like a discarded Gauloises. So, my waffling point is this: we all thought Mike did a terrible job, and we live in the present tense, but how will he be viewed in years to come? If he’s viewed as that bloke who killed Kings Cross and sold half of Sydney to his mates now, what will he become?

Awkies.

As for a historic stablemate, pop him alongside Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was unfortunate to be shot, and took 17 million deaths with him in WW1, then a century after his death, faced greater brutality when a group of chavs from Leeds cashed in on his name and made awful, awful music.

Coming in 2047, the Mike Baird’s?

Centrelink’s robo-debt officers, for ripping off James Cameron wholesale.

To use an ironically over used Hollywood trope: “It’s been done”. Not entirely sold on the idea that the debt they’re doling (thank you) out may not be in the simplest of definitions, right, they’ve decided to loose their secret weapon to complete their fantastic plot of extortion.

Robo-debt collectors.

I have two problems with this. Firstly, the regular humanoid debt collectors are heartless enough, but secondly, they’ve just been lazy in their thinking, because they’ve just ripped off The Terminator; technology becomes conscious, rises against humans, seeks to eradicate the…ir credit ratings, therefore, no future.

However, within the puzzle lies the solution. I feel what we need to do is reprogram one of the ruthless harassment machines and send it back in time to blow up Alan Tudge’s computer. Beware though, as the destruction of Centrelink will only enable a more dire future, where the Coalition Hunter Killers roll over the skulls of the destitute.